MEANWHILE:

• pansy has never had to work this hard to get laid, like, ever.
  
• she can’t tell if percy weasley is incredibly stupid or just incredibly oblivious–is it possible for him to be this oblivious? she doubts it–but she’s frustrated enough after a few months of sharing an office with him that she’s pretty sure it doesn’t matter. she hadn’t worn underwear yesterday. to a company sponsored outdoor softball game. in the summer. and she’s run out of cleavage to expose and body parts to wax and percy weasley and his–stupid jawline and stupid shoulders and stupid long, elegant, keyboard-callused fingers–they didn’t even notice.
• they didn’t even care.
• “he uses a pocket protector,” she groans to…someone. a bartender. he’s built like a brick shithouse and doesn’t have a nametag, so she’s been calling him biceps in her head. and out of her head. whatever. “for his–fountain pens. he has fountain pens, like, little–marbled red ones? they’re super tacky, i don’t know how he sleeps at night.”
  
• biceps wordlessly pours her another vodka soda.
• “i wish i did, though,” pansy continues, blowing her bangs out of her eyes when she realizes she can’t see straight anymore. it doesn’t help. “know how he sleeps at night, i mean. and–god, that’s so creepy, i’m so–do you get it? i don’t get it at all, biceps, okay, like–like, i’m really pretty.” 
• biceps pinches the bridge of his nose and glances up at the ceiling, like he’s…praying? swearing? “unbelievable,” he mutters, snatching her glass out of her hands and knocking back the rest of it himself.
• “he’s unbelievable,” pansy argues, sniffling. “he’s–he cuts himself shaving, constantly, like, he’s twenty-eight, how does he–and he acts–he acts like suspenders are a fashion statement, he lectured me about MSG the other day, i don’t–i want to–do you believe in soulmates?” 
  
• biceps squints at her and slowly uncorks a bottle of grey goose. “i don’t even think cutting you off would help.”
• the next morning, pansy is wildly hungover, which isn’t necessarily all that weird, but her phone is in her hand, blinking at her with a LOW BATTERY alert and, like, a billion text notifications, which kind of is.
• she thumbs through them after swallowing half a blister pack of xanax and exactly two advil, horror mounting–
• her previously blank message thread with percy weasley is very definitely no longer blank. 
• and there, at the bottom, next to an ominous 4:33 am timestamp:
• we need to talk, parkinson.

AND THEN:

• percy is angry.
  
• percy is so angry he’s practically vibrating with it, the tension in his spine curdling upwards and outwards and infecting him, leeching logic and reason and patience and dignity from–wherever those things originate. his brain. his nervous system. the cavernous, burning ulcer in his stomach. he doesn’t know. the point is, his blood pressure is dangerously high and he’s ninety-six minutes late for a breakfast meeting and he’s grinding his teeth again, which, god, he hasn’t done since undergrad, at least.
• he’s just–
• he’s used to being the unwitting subject of a variety of less than pleasant practical jokes. he is. he’s very used to being mocked, to being pranked, to having his glasses stolen and the pages of his textbooks plastered with permanent marker dicks and his name alliterated into mind-numbingly predictable insults. he’d grown up with that. he’s used to it.
• because he has two older brothers and three younger ones and none of them have ever let him forget that he’s different. pompous, prissy, boring percy, too busy pretending he’s important to come home for christmas, too stuck up to answer his own mother’s phone calls, too morally stifled by his delusions of grandeur to make the right choices. to find a nice girl, marry her in his parents’ backyard, and bury himself in their wholesome happy nauseating brand of mediocrity.
• he’s used to it. he is. and he’s always been such a good sport about it, too.
• but now–
• after this–
• after pansy parkinson and her tauntingly salacious, grammatically incorrect confessions of–
• well.
• confessions of something, certainly.
• still.
• he’s fucking tired of it.
  
• he’s fucking tired of taking it.
• he’s fucking–
• “this isn’t funny,” he snaps, brandishing his phone as soon as parkinson opens her front door. she lives in a building with both a doorman and a working elevator. percy is not impressed. “this isn’t professional, or acceptable, or–jesus christ, are you okay?”
  
• it’s a ridiculous question; she very clearly, very visibly, is not okay. her eyes are bloodshot, cheeks streaked with tear tracks and mascara residue and–glitter? and her hair is knotted on top of her head in a sad facsimile of a bun, escaping strands curling down the back of her neck, and the straps of her tank top are twisted and drooping off one bare shoulder and her yoga pants are threadbare and strangely soft-looking, loose around her hips like she’s worn them too many times, and it’s–weird. pansy parkinson is the most self-aware, consciously put-together person percy has ever met. she’d once told a tabloid that her best friend was the “closest reflective surface”. she doesn’t–look like this.
• “pansy,” percy says slowly, pushing his way into her apartment. it’s very…pink. he vaguely feels like he just stepped inside a victoria’s secret. “what’s wrong with you? are you ill?”
  
• pansy trails after him, shuffling her meticulously pedicured feet, and then flops face-down on her white leather sectional. “this is so fucking embarrassing,” she moans, muffling her words with a velvet-tasseled purple throw pillow. “like, this is–this is karma, isn’t it? for defending the kardashians on twitter?”
• percy frowns, averting his gaze when the back of her shirt rides up. “what’s…why is this embarrassing? do you have a fever? are you even trying to stay hydrated?”
• she exhales on a piteous sounding wail. “percy, what’s the capital of germany?”
• “berlin,” he answers automatically, mouth going dry when she rolls back over. her navel is pierced. with–diamonds. of course it is. “why?”
  
• “i’m moving there,” she says, absently tugging at her bra. “i’m moving there tomorrow.”
  
• percy stares at her, nonplussed–
• “you were serious,” he blurts out, unable to mask his astonishment.